Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Jeff Owens hasn't participated in a full practice in 11 months, and he nearly missed his triumphant return. He spent the weekend in New York and a weekend bomb scare at the airport delayed his return until Monday afternoon, arriving back in Athens just a few minutes before the team's first meeting.

The hectic journey paled in comparison to the work he put in to rehab a torn ACL, however, but after one day of practice the effort seems to have paid off.

"I think I did quite well," Owens said. "I even conditioned with the team and I wasn't held out of anything. I think it's going pretty good."

That doesn't mean the practice was easy, however.

Georgia spent nearly three hours on the practice field Tuesday, the team's first practice session with coaches since April. The players only donned shorts and practice jerseys and there was no contact, but brushing away the cobwebs still meant breaking a pretty hearty sweat.

"The first day's always tough," Owens said. "It was tough for me, but overall, I think it went pretty well on both sides of the ball. The guys competed and got after it."

Tuesday not only marked Owens return from injury, but it was also the first chance coaches had to meet with Georgia's incoming freshmen class.

The findings on Day 1 weren't significantly different from the reports coaches had gotten from players throughout a summer of voluntary workouts – the freshmen were prepared and eager to learn more.

"When you can walk into a meeting room for the first time with guys this morning and ask them some questions and they can fire the answer back at you, it certainly means a lot at this point," tight ends coach John Lilly said.

Georgia will practice in shorts again today before putting on shells for the next three days of practice. Monday will feature two practice sessions, including the first with full pads and contact.

"It won't be the same until you get into your first day of pads and contact," safety Bryan Evans said. "We've been running all summer, but when you put on the weight and start banging on each other, that's when you really see where our team is at physically."

GOOD FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The Bulldogs' first practice session may have been an eye-opener for many of the new faces on campus, but freshman tight end Orson Charles couldn't get enough.

After wowing his teammates during voluntary workouts this summer, Charles gave coaches a taste of his high-energy approach, and offensive coordinator Mike Bobo was impressed.

"He loves to play." Bobo said. "He wanted to take every rep. He didn't want to sit out a single play. He's hungry, and when the ball was thrown to him today, he made some catches. He didn't know everything that was going on, but neither did A.J. Green last year, but he made plays."

The comparisons to Green are impressive enough, but the Georgia wide receiver said Charles actually reminds him more of another prominent Bulldog.

"He reminds me of Knowshon a little bit," Green said of Charles. "He's got one of those motors that never stops."

ENJOYING THE SILENCE

Before his team took the field for its first day of practice a year ago, Mark Richt spent the morning answering questions about two players who had been arrested and a third who earned a suspension for damaging property at a local hospital. So when a reporter asked about the quiet offseason this year, Richt's response was relief.

"Amen," he said with a laugh.

The troublesome offseason a year ago foreshadowed a problematic season on the field in which Georgia was among the most penalized teams in the nation. Richt said his hope is that the trouble-free break this year will be precede a similar on-field turnaround.

"Have we been a more disciplined team from January to August than we were a year ago? To this point, we have," Richt said. "We hope that will translate to being a more disciplined team on the field."

4 comments:

If you have a chance to peruse our kickoff reps, I have a few areas of concern. I'd greatly appreciate accounts of Bogotay's touchback potential, whether Fabris is still married to directional kicking, and also the mix of players used in kickoffs (i.e. 3-4 lb, 3-4 db, a couple of wr/rb, etc.)

I may not be remembering correctly, but I thought you said that with last season, coaches let the media watch the first 30 minutes of practice, which I thought might be special teams drills. (Man that sentence structure sucked.)

I apologize in advance for any typos, run-ons, et al or a tone of general incomprehensibility. As a rule, I try to get my correspondence completed before taking Ambien.

Carter -- I've got a special teams story on the way in the next few days. Richt did say today he expected more scholarship guys on the coverage teams. I've also been told from some reliable people that the directional kicking will still be the game plan, but perhaps with a few new twists this year.

David, thanks for for your top notch coverage. One of the maddening special teams issues for me that last few years is our insistence on using a single deep return man on KO returns. We are one of the only teams in the nation that does this. It makes no sense. If that ball is kicked in between the numbers and sideline, our return guy has to run 20 yards just go catch the ball.

Advertisement

Search Top Blogs...

Subscribe To

My Latest Tweets

Twitter Updates

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Seth Emerson has been covering the SEC and Georgia (on and off) since 2002. He worked at the Albany Herald from 2002-05, then spent five years at The State in Columbia, S.C., covering South Carolina. He returned to Athens in August of 2010, only to find that David Pollack and David Greene were no longer playing for the Bulldogs. Adjustments were made. Emerson is originally from Silver Spring, Md., and graduated from Maryland in 1998 with a degree in journalism and a minor in getting lost on the way to practically everywhere. Then he spent four years at The Washington Post, covering small colleges, a couple NCAA basketball tournaments, and on one glorious day, was yelled at by Tony Kornheiser. It was probably at The Post that he also learned to write in the third person.These days he lives in Athens with his beloved and somewhat wimpy dog, Archie. Together they fight crime at night in northeast Georgia, except on nights there is no crime, in which case they sit at home, sip on white wine and watch reruns of "Mad Men."